The Camp Verde Sanitary District Board is investigating a former board chairwoman, alleging she might have misused public money.

The board decided in a meeting, Nov. 14, to ask its attorneys to investigate Suzy Burnside, a previous chairwoman and board member of the sewer district for the past eight years.

Current Board Chairman Rob Witt, who took over in January, said that the previous board had spent $1.4 million on the expansion of the district’s sewer service, apparently without properly recording the funds in its budget reports.

Witt said Burnside was being singled out because she was the leader of the previous board, and the other members were just falling in line behind her.“There was no accountability,” Witt said. “That’s a lot of money …. If she misused the money she needs to pay it back.”

The former board members and attorneys were “absolutely honorable people,” Burnside said.

She told the sanitary district board that if it feels there was a misuse of public funds, then it has an obligation to investigate the matter.

The sanitary district is paying its attorneys, the Ledbetter Law Firm, to investigate the matter, Witt said.

Burnside, while acknowledging the board’s obligation to investigate suspected wrongdoing, said she feels the sanitary board should use the state’s investigatory arm instead of spending additional tax money on a private law firm.

Witt said he just wants to make sure that people are held accountable in the case public funds were abused.

Mark Lineberger can be reached at 567-3341, or e-mail to
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